7 of the craziest failed projects in Las Vegas
The Las Vegas skyline is already breathtaking. It features a half-scale Eiffel Tower, a roller coaster that flies over the Statue of Liberty's head, and an Egyptian Sphinx that's 46 feet taller than life. The Strip has just debuted as a spherical concert hall, has the world's largest LED screen, and is about to begin construction on a giant guitar that can put you to sleep.
Believe it or not, things could have been crazier. Here are seven projects that, with a little luck, could easily become a reality…
7. Viva Venice
In 1991, there was a problem in downtown Las Vegas. While the strip is booming, it's also aging. Over the past 30 years, Las Vegas tourism has slowly shifted in the opposite direction from 80 percent downtown and 20 percent on the Strip.
Two years after helping make the Fremont Street Experience Rooftop a reality, Golden Nugget owner Steve Wynn is excited about the success of his recently opened Mirage, offering a very different solution to revitalizing the gambling district's streets city centre.
They will be torn down and replaced with a $25 million series of canals from South Main Street to South Third Street, dotted with rentable gondolas and lined with sandy beaches.
Dubbed the "Venice of Las Vegas" by the media, the project faced harsh criticism for its environmental irresponsibility, which ultimately led to its sinking, although the waterway would use recycled wastewater.
But the idea may have lingered, at least in the mind of Sheldon Adelson, who five years later demolished the Las Vegas Sands and built the Venetian.
6. Idea rejected
Parabounce in Las Vegas is an attraction that promises to strap 20 people to a 22-foot-tall helium balloon and send them flying hundreds of feet into the air in a 100,000-square-foot bubble dome.
Think of it as a "3D bumper car," says Stephen Meadows, who conceived the project in 2010 for his company, One Giant Leap.
Or as a playground for personal injury lawyers.
Anyway, it never started.
5. A $100 Million WWF Casino Is Not 100% WTF
In 1998, the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) (now World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE)) purchased the failed Debbie Reynolds Hotel and Casino at 305 Convention Center Drive for $10.6 million at auction.
In 1980, WWF co-founders Vincent and Linda McMahon planned to demolish the 200-room hotel and build a massive $100 million The altar of professional wrestling. There will be rooms themed after The Rock and other icons of the sport, and its entertainment showcase will host regular wrestling events.
But the hotel doesn’t have enough space to realize those dreams. In 2000, the WWF sold the property for a $1 million profit and never revisited the idea. The hotel operated as the Greek Islands Hotel and Casino from 2001 to 2009 and as the Clarion Hotel and Casino from 2009 to 2014, and is now used as a parking lot.
4. Countryland USA Launch
The original Thunderbird opened in 1948 on the future Las Vegas Strip, was renamed the Silverbird in 1977, and renamed the second El Rancho in 1982 before closing for good a decade later.
In November 1993, a Los Angeles-based television production company purchased the resort for $36.5 million, with plans to transform and reopen it as El Rancho Countryside USA. Plans would see two 20-story hotel towers modeled after cowboy boots.
The project never found financial support. The property changed hands twice more in 2000 after Turnberry Associates demolished El Rancho's last remaining building, a 13-story hotel tower, which it planned to build on the property. A London-style resort was built, but that never came to fruition either.
Today, the property is home to the newly opened Fontainebleau Hotel.
3. Promise to the Moon
Canadian entrepreneur and Lasik Vision co-founder Michael Henderson has been trying to locate his $5 billion moon vision in Las Vegas since he first sold it to investors in 2002.
As proposed, the Moon would be 735 feet tall and 650 feet wide. 4,000 hotel suites will be built beneath its surface. A 300,000-square-foot top floor will be a replica of the moon's surface, where a 90-minute walk will cost $500 per person.
The satellite will be built on a three-level platform with hundreds of stores, a 10,000-seat arena and a 130-seat podium. There is a 000 square meter casino where "Take Me to the Moon" may be played frequently.
However, it's likely it will never be built in Las Vegas. At 250 acres, more than twice the size of CityCenter, it's simply too big. According to its owner, Moon is currently flying to Dubai.
Shortly after Titanic was released in 1997, it became the highest-grossing movie of all time, inspiring Bob Stupak to plan a themed casino resort in downtown Las Vegas.
In 1999, the Las Vegas casino legend, who had opened the Stratosphere Casino three years earlier, announced plans to build a 280-foot-tall hotel on the site of the Thunderbird Hotel on Las Vegas Boulevard, just south of Charleston Boulevard. Ocean liner replica. The fake ship had a budget of $300-400 million. That's more than the $198 million (in today's dollars) spent to build the real McCoy. Stupak's Titanic will be 100 feet taller.
There will be 1,200 hotel properties, including 800 timeshares, to facilitate financing. There will be a car park styled in the style of Titanic's home port of Southampton, England, and an iceberg-shaped retail complex. Ultimately, it was neither the iceberg nor hubris that caused the Titanic to sink, but the Las Vegas City Council.
1. Entrepreneurship concept
This brings us back to where we started. The Starship Enterprise was another idea floated by Fremont Street before the iconic canopy was settled on.
The installation, proposed by Landmark Entertainment Group in 1992, would be an original version of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek, anchored in the middle of closed Fremont Street. At 1,000 feet long, it's twice as long as the fake Eiffel Tower on the Las Vegas Strip.
Entertainment designer Gary Goddard came up with the idea for the project, which won a downtown revitalization competition, and for a hot moment it looked ready, like a done deal.
The $150 million project will include key rooms, chambers, decks and corridors of the TV ship, as well as rides and restaurants. However, there will be no hotel rooms or casinos. That's because it will be funded entirely by downtown's 10 neighboring casino resorts, who don't want any competition - just to draw curious tourists from the Strip to downtown.
Paramount Pictures, which controls the "Star Trek" franchise, agreed to move forward with the project for a $5 million licensing fee after receiving approval from the city of Las Vegas, which has jurisdiction over the downtown area.
Goddard and former Disney Imagineering engineers have plans that have Mayor Jane Rafferty Jones and the Downtown Redevelopment Commission excited. But before the Las Vegas City Council could vote on the deal, Paramount got cold feet.
According to Goddard, Paramount boss Stanley Jaffe worried that the appeal was too much of a gamble—that if it declined, the Star Trek brand would go bankrupt with it.
"I couldn't believe it," Goddard told The Hollywood Reporter in 2016. "This thing is still there today. It will be bigger and more powerful than ever. It will be a monument to the world. It will be iconic."
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Source: www.casino.org
